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MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION C. Food Service Market Channel: Institutions Cabarrus County contributes to funding for the Department of Aging, Kannapolis City and Cabarrus County Schools, and the Cabarrus County Jail. Together these institutions spend approximately $4.8 million on food annually." Carolina Medical Center (CMC) Northeast, a privately managed hospital in Concord, is another institution with significant food purchases. This summary includes key points taken from telephone interviews with Cabarrus institutional food buyers, as well as a meeting of County Departments Heads and other County staff working to implement the Local Food Purchasing Policy. Questions were designed to establish current food purchasing practices and to identify opportunities and challenges associated with purchasing locally - produced food. County institutions have relationships with broad line food distributors When purchasing food to serve clients — seniors, students and inmates — institutions contract with broad line food distributors. Sysco distributes to the Department of Aging, Kannapolis City Schools and to the County Jail, and U.S. Foodservice distributes to the 37 schools in the Cabarrus County School System. The distribution company bids on the contract, which is awarded to the lowest bidder. Fresh Point delivers produce to CMC Northeast, which awards bids based on service and price. Cabarrus County Schools do offer geographic preference for individual non - processed items, such as carrots. Yet in order to source these items locally, the school system must identify the need for it as a separate item, and then get three different bids. The contract for carrots or similar items would also be awarded to the lowest bidder. Both Cabarrus County Schools and Kannapolis City Schools participate in the N.C. Farm to School Program. The program provides North Carolina grown items including apples, strawberries, broccoli, cabbage and sweet potatoes. Menus are planned annually, then adjusted when this produce becomes available. Staff usually receives three months notice about the produce. They use this time to plan for promoting the produce. The Kannapolis City Schools purchase 35 percent fresh food, 10 percent canned fruit, and 55 percent frozen food. They do not purchase canned vegetables due to their low nutritional value. The kitchens at the all four departments and CMC Northeast are adequately equipped to prepare fresh produce. County staff working to implement Local Food Purchasing Policy In 2010 the County adopted a Local Food Purchasing Policy that requires County employees to locally source 10 percent of all food served at County catered events and small depart- ment sponsored meetings from food producers within North Carolina. Department leaders are currently taking steps to meet this requirement. The Local Food Purchasing Policy identifies the Department Head as the agency contact for sourcing and purchasing local food, but most need information about how and where to find local food. As Department Heads work to comply with the County's Local Food Purchasing Plan, they are raising questions about how to define local. For example, when working with Punchy's Diner, they were unsure if they needed to ask whether the meat was locally- raised, locally - processed or both. Department Heads anticipate having to spend more money on local food, making cost a challenge. They also need information about ways to substitute locally- sourced food for processed items, such as granola bars and cheese trays that are convenient and commonly used at meetings /departmental events. Food safety requirements, supply present expected challenges Department managers rely on Cabarrus County Risk Management office to determine food safety requirements. In general, individual vendors must comply with the food safety requirements mandated by the distribution companies. CMC Northeast, Cabarrus County Schools and Kannapolis City Schools require each vendor to have a Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan in place. To access institutional markets, individual farmers must be able to meet their supply needs. For example, a producer providing a product to Cabarrus County Schools must supply 37 schools each week. Institutions are big food purchasers, and so they are attractive markets for local food. However Cabarrus farmers are currently not producing enough to supply these markets. Beef has more potential than produce to be a viable product for institutions, but much needs to happen before that is possible. The Cruse facility needs to open and local beef producers need to scale up production. Relationships must be built between farmers and the distributors who supply these institutions. Department heads working to adopt the Cabarrus County Local Food Purchasing Policy offer a more immediate Cabarrus County Food System AsAsesssment nuTP 1 1 -1 Page 645